Oi! Brazil! Wake up, eh?!

"Today is the rainiest day we have had all year" -- the Mayor of Curitiba, opening plenary at IUHPE 2016.

Today, it rained. And rained. And rained....like monsoon level rain. However, I have such a short time here in Curitiba that I was desperate to go sight see a little bit before the conference opening plenary session this evening.

I'm gonna go ahead and say Sunday is not the greatest day in a very Catholic place to do any touristing. The apparently coolest part of the city looked like this on this incredibly wet and holy day:

Rua Sao Francisco

The deserted Praca General Osorio, Centro, Curitiba

What is it the country folk say? Shut up tigher'n a nun's butthole? Is that a thing? Lisa and I, who I met in Rio through a friend on facebook, braved the downpour and went to go check out the Feira Hippie (I think loosely translated as the "hippy market"?). Basically it is just a weekly huge Sunday market in the old part of the city. I'm wondering if Brazilians aren't awesome at pushing through inclement weather cause this apparently insanely busy market that according to the internet is supposed to look like this:

https://eyebrazil.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/adrianoantoine_pr_curitiba_019_005.jpg 

looked like this today:

Lisa and I found a place to have a highly affordable lunch:

That was about half the cost of a meal in Rio. And after walking around the old town center for awhile getting more and more soggy:

Catedral de Curitiba, Praca Tiradentes, Centro, Curitiba

Catedral de Curitiba, side view

The Art Museum, Curitiba, Centro, Curitiba

A strange horse fountain---not sure why they created it to look like it was vomiting water, but the craftsmanship was quite lovely.

Igereja do Rosario, Largo de Ordem, Curitiba

A small pride/LGBTQ event

After some aimless wandering, we gave up and found a little bar with microbrews. Yes, hipster microbrewing has made it's way to Curitiba:

Enjoying an Apricot Saison in the rain... same price as a Vancouver microbrew.

There was much visible homelessness here in the downtown area, coupled with the fact that Lisa kinda sticks out like a Scandinavian sore thumb, and we were approached often for money. Interestingly, in Rio, this never happened...and I don't mean just in Ipanema or Copacabana, I mean it never happened even once you entered the rougher parts of Rio, like the downtown core. However, this very much could be that the Rio police whisk all the homeless people away in vans to outer parts of the city... a practice that has been known to happen even in places like Edmonton in the recent past, if I do recall.

Lisa and I parted ways and I headed back to my apartment to change into my last remaining clean AND appropriate looking item of clothing which is basically a summer dress that was, at the same time, entirely inappropriate for the weather. The weather today was akin to a mild rainy winter day in Vancouver. I headed out to find a taxi to get me to the evening opening plenary of the conference. I ran around looking for a taxi in the rain, in a sundress and sandals, waving my arms like a maniac with not much luck until finally, I came across a taxi and driver who appeared to be parked and having a little snooze and pretty ambivalent as to whether he had a fare or not.

Opening plenary of the 22nd International Union of Health Promotion and Education, Health and Equity conference

I was pretty stoked for this opening plenary as I recognised some of the speakers, some big wigs in the public health and health promotion world followed by a reception with food that was to begin at 8 pm. However, it began with an hour of an adorable, prepubescent Brazilian glee club, followed by an intense rendition of the incredibly imperialistic-sounding Brazilian national anthem, followed by an hour of a politician parade from different levels of government giving impassioned speeches, alluding to the collapse of the system that is currently going on here, to rowdy cheers from the huge Brazilian contingent. It reminded me of the Canadian Public Health Association conference in the spring of 2015 in Vancouver prior to the Canadian election where Stephen Harper and his Conservatives were the butt of numerous jokes and political accusations of egregious sorts that were loudly applauded and cheered and 'shame'-ed throughout the three day conference. So...like, I get it.

This is my favourite quote/plea from one of the conference organisers during the opening plenary trying to urge Brazilians to get out of bed and be punctual:

"The shuttles to come to the convention center leave from your hotels at 7:45 and 8:15 am. I ask you, my fellow Brazilians, to show our foreign friends that we can wake up early and get started at 9 am sharp!"

FINALLY the actual plenary speakers began at 7:40 pm, Lisa and I were starving, having not eaten since lunch time,  and were eagerly awaiting the scheduled end of the talk so we could go get some reception food. But no... 8 pm rolled around, 8:05 rolled around, 8:15 rolled around, and we could no longer stand the hunger pangs. We left and headed to where the food was with the expectation that they had already started serving because the program said it was supposed to start at 8 pm. No dice. Hangry and tired, we were just about to leave to find a restaurant somewhere that might be open on a Sunday night in this sleepy city. FINALLY they opened the food up and we got first dibbs, grabbed our highly anticipated glasses of red wine, found a corner to set up camp, and shoved the food in our faces in classic north american style...no shame. Once the pangs of hunger ebbed, we happily took a sip of our red wine and discovered it was indeed not wine but grape juice, much to our severe disappointment. It was a juice-only reception. WTF Brazil? By the time we went for seconds (and thirds, in my case), the opening plenary had FINALLY ended and the remainder of the 1000 conference participants had descended on the food tables....evidently we hadn't been the only hungry ones. The "situation" quickly turned violent, like a pack of wolves descending on a carcass and the room became a torso-to-torso mob with many people from many countries with different beliefs about etiquette and decorum when it comes to line-ups and buffet tables. It was highly unpleasant for us non-aggressive (almost passive) Canadian gals who agree that one of the things we like most about Canada are orderly line-ups and taking turns, luxuries of a nation with low population density and abundance. We retreated as fast as possible in a taxi for an early night.

From Rough Rio to "Cultured" Curitiba

Today I left Rio, my new found love. I awoke this morning to a beautiful morning, and adorned myself in the last clean pairs of shorts and T-shirt I had, my travel clothes for the day, and walked to the corner to get a to-go coffee. Then I sauntered down the block to Ipanema beach for one last hang out with the sea. At 7:30 on a Saturday morning, the beach was already bustling with people jogging, playing some sort of weird paddle ball over volleyball nets, and many many beach volleyball courts being set up for what appeared to be a regular Saturday beach volleyball extravaganza.

I sat down close to the water and drank it, and my coffee, in:

I then promptly spilled coffee all over my last clean pair of shorts and T-shirt and the desperation to find a lavendaria (laundry place) sunk in. I also now looked like a total slob sitting on this beautiful beach with beautiful people in fancy running clothes and sporty, stylish beach volleyball attires. I walked along the shore for a bit and tried to rub out some of the rapidly staining coffee spills with sea water and to hopefully cover up the stains with wet spots so I could at least make it home with people just thinking the ocean splashed me. I'm ridiculous.

After my airbnb checkout where my host said to me, "I will open the door for you to leave. In Brazil we have a tradition where if the host opens the door for you it means you will come back and visit again" (and he helped me correctly pronounce "Aeroporto Internacional"), I hopped in a taxi and headed for the airport using my correct pronunciation... or it might have been closer to Spanish, not sure. Yes, it seems like this would be easy to pronounce, like many Portuguese words on-paper, yet the words are rarely pronounced how you think they are going to be pronounced. My perception of the language so far is that there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the pronunciations of letters and letter combos and it makes no sense to me. I just end up guessing, a lot....then the Brazilians just start speaking Spanish to me. 

En route to the airport, catching my last glimpse of Jesus acting all superior looking down from up there on Corcovado mountain, I was reminded of the inequities that exist. I left Ipanema, one of the more touristy, upscale neighbourhoods of Rio, and took the freeway to the airport which is lined on both sides with high walls. Behind these walls are favelas. I'm sure there is some justification for these walls by the city as a safety measure, but I presume that it also works in the City's favour to block from sight Rio's poverty as people from all over the world head into the City to tourist around in places like Ipanema and Copacabana.

A favela viewed from Ipanema beach: even Ipanema cannot keep the favelas down! :-) 

The drive to the airport reminded me that, yes, while this city has a beautiful vibe and, in many places, is absolutely as developed as North American cities (with the added degradation of building exteriors that inevitably come from tropical weather..boohoo), it is still a city in transition, a "City under Construction".

I arrived at the airport fairly early and set up camp at a table, pulling my laptop out with the grand intention of FINALLY doing some work. But nope! I ended up talking with the man sitting at the table next me, an independent mining engineering consultant from North Vancouver who frequents Brazil multiple times a year. Of course I was stoked to be having a full conversation with someone and he was kind of interesting… apparently more interesting than the work I had intended to do.

A couple beers later I made it to my departure gate and discovered a gaggle of Canadians headed to the same conference as myself. One person was even a professor from my alma mater, the U of A School of Public Health, who attended some of my lunch time yoga classes I taught there during my short stint as a yoga instructor. Basically this gaggle of Canadians, who were mostly all middle-aged lady-professors from universities across Canada, was like a big group entirely consisting of my mother….all innocent, sweet, and a bit clueless about how boarding the airplane was working. SO more conversations!! Yay….?

Then on the plane, the Curitibano man behind me had just come from living in Montreal for three months and spoke excellent English and the man beside me was Quebecois who also spoke English. Yay? More conversations?

We landed in Curitiba, the Europe of Brazil, as the sun was setting over the beautiful cattle country that Parana is. I finally arrived at my airbnb after an OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive taxi ride (93,00 Reis!!...but actually when I did the math it was like 34$...but it felt stressfully expensive at the time).  Daiana, my beautiful airbnb host, checked me in. And she spoke excellent English (and French and Spanish and probably Flemish because she had lived in Belgium for awhile). She is a videographer and journalist and, until recently, was doing TV reporting here in the State of Parana. Her and some friends have now established a co-working/entrepreneurial space in an old house where people with diverse occupations, working for themselves and she is now doing freelance journalism work. She appears to be about my age, very stylish and very “cultured” with her condo book shelves containing the works of Allende, Saramago, Bukowski, Nabokov, etc. Anyways, she is lovely. And her condo is lovely:

Airbnb condo in Sao Francisco, Curitiba

Famished, attired in dirty laundry clothes, I went around the corner for some dinner at a charming Syrian restaurant owned by a young man and his uncle who immigrated to Brazil one and a half years ago, before the immigration “crisis” really ramped up in Europe. I asked him how they chose to come to Brazil at that time and how they didn’t end up in that desperate flood of  Syrian refugees and he said, “people couldn’t see what was going to happen, I’m a writer, and I love to read, and I could see where it was going, so I left”. He talked with me relatively extensively, telling me he missed speaking English and we laughed about the eccentricities of Portuguese. So, more conversation (and amazing Syrian food leftovers):

After dinner, I was so tired and was tempted to just go back to my apartment and get a good night sleep, but Daiana, my host, had invited me to join her and her friends at the jazz club around the corner. Because of the short time I will have in Curitiba, most of which will be monopolised by conference stuff, I pushed through my fatigue and headed over to the club. Wow. WAAAYYY MORE CONVERSATIONS!! All of her friends spoke English incredibly well, two of them were English teachers, two of them had just returned from living in Ottawa for a year of university, and the other two were “Sao Paulo” refugees to Curitiba—getting a way from what is apparently the madness of Sao Paulo to live a better quality of life. **By the way, Curitiba has been recognised as the best city to live in in Brazil with it’s forward thinking sustainability initiatives and highly educated, urbane, multicultural, relatively wealthy 3.6 million inhabitants***

Here we had excellent, fun MORE CONVERSATION, and I was able to get so many of my questions about Brazil answered! I also learned that Portuguese pronunciations differ across the regions of Brazil and so it actually doesn’t really matter how I pronounce anything!! FREEEEE---DOOOMM!

After all of this informative conversation over Caparinhas and jazz, I walked home and went to bed with a sore throat from all the goddamn convos. Be careful what you wish for, Adrienne!

And tomorrow, this:

Where something like 1000 people from all over the world will be congregated and at which, I am certain, there will be more talking...

So this travelling "alone" thing isn't a real thing, really, is it?

The honeymoon begins just as the marriage ends...

I fell in love today (and no, not with the 80 shirtless Brazilian military-policemen-in-training running down the mountain where Jesus lives....aside: thank you lord jesus...I have seen the light! My eyes have seen the glory!). 

I leave tomorrow. 

Timing is everything, they say.

Today was the first day this week that I awoke to a non-rainy day. The many jewels of Rio called to me this morning and I again ditched the work I planned to do. Instead, I took an early morning trip to Parque Nacional da Tijuca, the location of Corvocado mountain atop which the famous giant Christ the Redeemer statue sits, in the center of the city, arms open, embracing this blossoming city that is not without it's growing pains, faults and roughness (sound familiar?). When viewing the statue from the city, the clouds roll by Jesus and obscure the base of the statue and the mountain top from view, and it appears as if he is floating on a cloud, spectacularly hovering above Rio de Janeiro in classic 'sky-god' big-brother style. 

I felt an urgency to get up there as Christ has been socked in all week with inclement weather and I figured it would be my last chance. I made my way to a brilliantly located little kiosk in Copacabana to catch a shuttle to the park and up the mountain. I purchased my ticket for the 8 am shuttle and was told that Jesus was still socked in (they even had a Jesus cam so we could see what the visibility up there would be like). I decided to hedge my bets and go all in anyway rather than take any chance waiting until later in the day on the off chance the visibility would improve. 

On the drive, we gained elevation climbing through windy cobblestone roads lined with charmingly shabby, colonial Portuguese buildings:

And with breathtaking views of the city:

As we maneuvered up the narrow road to Jesus's base camp, through a dense tropical forest and catching glimpses of this beautiful city nestled in "the armpits of Jesus", I consciously thought to myself, :wow, this really is a beautiful city"... I don't think I had noticed this yet since arriving. I was overwhelmed with joy and wonder and excitement that I have the good fortune to be here and see this place's magnificence before the Olympics destroys it (side note: in fact it might be that the 2014 World Cup and Olympic prep are kinda making this place even MORE spectacular, cleaner, and safer...and trust me, I am no avid supporter of multi-national, multi-gazillion dollar sporting competitions on principle... with all this being said, I want to also acknowledge the immense poverty/equity gap that continues to exist and appears to be kind of swept under the rug, as far as I can (or can't) see).

As if on cue, as we reached the top of the mountain, the clouds parted for just a few minutes and Jesus came into view:

IT'S A GODDAMN MIRACLE!!

...and I got my money's worth:

... which quickly (like within 12 minutes) turned into this:

And this....

On the way back down to catch a shuttle van home, I pulled  a tiny little banana out of my sweet nylon airport sac and pulled the peel off,  and was about to chow down when I looked to my right and, much to my surprise, there was a Brown Capuchin monkey who seemed to appear out of nowhere. He gave me the old sad eyed-monkey look and, at the same time, I was kinda freaked out cause I have seen how aggressive the monkeys in Indian cities can be AND I'm hella-scared of wild animals and their erratic behaviour. In a panic, I just threw the banana on the ground for him to have and then felt guilty later that I didn't respect him more and just gently hand it to him, my cliche little earth brother:

A monkey eating a banana..soooooo original.

And I also don't typically condone the feeding of wild animals. The panic made me do it!!

I headed home from hangin' with the lord and went to the beach for the first time since arriving here in Brazil. This time of year, the beaches are completely empty outside of a few foreigners, who you can tell are foreigners cause they actually go in the 'frigid' Atlantic waters. A small amount of locals hang out there but would never be caught dead going in the water for fear of hypothermia, I'm sure. It was exactly like I had read on the internet: full butt cheek exposure bottoms on women, teeny tiny man shorts, and NEVER use a towel but rather use a colourful sarong. That is the accepted Cariocas way.

Ipanema Beach

...Ah the sweet sweet quick-tanning powers of the equatorial sun even through cloudy skies. Soaking in the VD.

But the day was not done with my beach lounge, oh no! I JUST discovered the beauty of this city and I was not going to let it go to waste! 

After lunch I headed to the Jardim Botanico to stroll through the imperial palms and imperial they were:

Imperial palms

Portal del Antiga Acadmeia de Belas Artes (The Portal of the Former Fine Arts Academy)... an old entryway to nowhere.

The day ended with dinner with some new friends (yay I got to go out late at night in Rio AND have a full conversation with other humans!!), packing and strategising how I could take a quick morning beach lounge before flying inland to Curitiba tomorrow, to embrace this stunning place one last beautiful and peaceful moment.

I recognize that if I stayed even slightly longer, the city would begin to kick me in the teeth. I would begin to have yelling fits at bank staff and servers, overwhelmed with the frustration that comes with growing up in Canada, the land of efficiency, organisation, and low population density, and experiencing places that work on a more "tropical" schedule, let's call it.

Tchau, você bela cidade verde! I'll be back for more of you someday!

Solo, soggy, and sappy

Since I haven't blogged in over a year, I started perusing some of my previous posts. I reached the first few posts from 2012 that went into some detail about my heartbreak healing process. I recalled that following that break up my world shrunk immensely for that time when all my goals and future plans that were sooooo BIG and WORLDLY dissolved in an instant. I recall planning to move back to Edmonton after spending three months at my parents acreage in Northern Alberta healing and the tinge of anxiety I felt. I recall being saddened by this because it was the first time in my life I felt scared to step out into the world. After a year in Edmonton, my world broadened a tiny bit more as I made the move to Vancouver to start my PhD and again anxiety reared it's head. After another year, I had the privilege of receiving a four year research award which brought with it the dream of relocating to Hungary in the fall of 2016 where I'd learn the language, reconnect with some of my patrilineal roots, and live where it is half the cost of living of Vancouver.... oh yes and write my dissertation, A couple weeks ago I finally made all those travel plans for Hungary and my world will be broadened again..and as I made those plans there was anxiety again! It came in the form of a paralysed left clicking finger as I went to book the one way flight and accommodations...and that is okay!! I have taken a slow pace and been gentle with myself as I've rebuilt my BIG and WORLDLY dreams on my own. After Budapest...who knows? Next stop: ENDOR!

Enough about me and my dreams... 

Day 2 of touristing in Rio was more rainy and a wee bit more discouraging than day 1. It began VERY early at about two in the morning, with a weird breakfast I cooked for myself with leftover fridge-food. For some reason I woke up at this ungodly hour starving because apparently one 7 oz steak- snack at cocktail hour, a bunch of cheese and sausage for a dinner appetizer coupled with an entree of fish stew was not enough to fill the caloric void for 8 hours of sleeping that is created by touristing.

Then I ate a second breakfast before ditching the work I had planned on doing and headed out on the bus to Centro, the downtown core of Rio to hit up the Museu Historico Nacional. I slathered on my DEET-laced moisturizer, packed my maps, and walked to the bus stop. I caught the  bus and, for awhile, kept track of where we were going and knew where we were based on my extensive studying of Rio maps. The bus I was on was like an express luxury cruiser that whisks you from one end of town to the other. On these particular buses there is no way to get the bus driver to stop unless you go up to the driver and yell at him across the turnstile, over the sound of traffic, to "STOP". This was problematic because I actually haven't yet learned to say "next stop please" let alone "next" or "stop" in Portuguese... and although you think everyone in the world would understand "STOP"...they do not. Having these basic words under your belt is imperative. Me and the driver got there eventually, though.

I wandered around for a while looking like I totally knew were I was going...

Random square

Random chruch

Random famous inclining driveway beside a random church (according to the interpretive plaque)

Random finds while wandering and pretending like I know where I'm going (in Centro, Rio)...this building might be the Justice Museum.

The thing that is nice about Rio is that it is like Vancouver in the sense that it is surrounded by oceans to the east and "mountains" to the west so you kind of always have a sense of direction...although in recent weeks I have some friends who have been pondering over the potential relativity of North, South, East and West (c'mon ladies, it WORKS!). I had studied the location of the Mueseu Historico Nacional on my little map and knew the general direction from the bus stop I got off at that me and the driver worked out. And in fact, I actually stumbled upon it relatively quickly and said out loud quietly to myself "you're the boss, Adrienne". Also, my confidence blossomed today because I finally learned how to pronounce my address properly so I felt certain if I wanted to, at any time, I could just hop in a cab and go home. This is basically the same way I feel about wandering through life, really. At any moment I can just move back in with my life-secure parents which provides me a lot of buffer space to wander further and further away from my known world. It's like if I were a really good amateur trapeze artist, like really good, and I try extra risky tricks and (usually always 98% of the time) confidently nail them but the confidence is only there cause I know the net is there for when the trapeze kicks the shit out of me.

When finished at the museum, I was feeling kind of in awe of the relatively non-offensive, yet extremely white-washed portion of the exhibit that documented the indigenous history here in Brazil. While the museum presented interesting artifacts and narratives describing the culture of some indigenous groups, there was only one mention of present-day poverty and inequity and NO presentation of the interactions between the indigenous peoples and the first pompous, arrogant, douche-baggy "Euro-backpackers" like this guy....

Some kind of statue glorifying some kind of coloniser

...which I assume were COMPLETELY different from the interactions of early North American colonisers and the indigenous peoples...NOT.

For lunch, I again wandered in some general direction of a bistro I read about in Frommer's and once again stumbled upon it very quickly much to my pleasant surprise.

Bistro do Paco, Centro, Rio de Janeiro

I couldn't read the menu and food-words have yet to be learned. After making animal sounds with the waiter to discern what meat was what on the menu,eventually the waiter and I got to the peixe de dia...so I ordered it. I asked for beer and a agua com gas...only got the agua. I then asked for a cappuccino following the meal and got something like a hot chocolate....but the waiter and I basically did the funky frango (now I know this means chicken) trying to take my order which might have been worth the kind of disappointing lunch I ended up with.

Peixe de dia @ Paco's (Centro, Rio)

Then the real "fun" began. I had decided to take a taxi to a neighbourhood called Santa Teresa and do this little self-guided walking tour I found in one of my travel books. It's a really old neighbourhood with cobblestone streets and old churches...apparently. Sooooo, yeah, that actually didn't happen. The taxi from Centro got me KIND OF close to the neighbourhood and then I started walking... and I began to see Rio's roughness. My airbnb is in a highly touristy area and therefore, well, you know what that means in these kinds of cities. I had yet to see the more real Rio. I found myself almost getting close to where I maybe wanted to start my walking tour but not really sure of where I was going. At the same time feeling the pressure to not pull out my map to get my bearings to avoid garnering any attention. So instead of using a map, I just walked up and down the same streets at least three times over the course of about an hour and a half trying to follow the tourist street signs, past the same people, which of course doesn't look touristy at all.

Rua da Lapa...I got to know this street well (Lapa, Rio)

And all the while it was pouring rain. And my bladder was going to explode. At some point I found myself wandering through streets alone with the voices in my head going "oh yeah, this is where and how gun-point robberies happen in broad daylight". I eventually gave up  and found a nice cafe and had a beer:

I-give-up beer.

I finally caught a taxi home with my new found useful skill of pronouncing my address and felt comfortable enough to almost fall asleep in the back seat. 

All I can say is that I didn't regret choosing to wear my mom-shoes for my day-2 trippin'.

Mom-shoes!

Nothin' to see here, folks...

I'm here. Brazil. Alive. Unharmed.... and thriving? I'm attending a conference in Curitiba next week...the International Union of Health Promotion and Education conference, to be exact ("I'm so fancy"). The conference is only a few days long so when the news came that I would be presenting at it, I thought I'd take the opportunity to turn it into a bit of holiday. This will be the first of many posts for the next few weeks as I make my way from Vancouver to Rio to Curitiba to Recife/Olinda to Praia de Carneiros to Brasilia and home. Thanks in advance for allowing this self-indulgence (loooove yoouuu). I can promise, however, there will be no selfies to exacerbate what is the already masturbatory act of blogging...travel blogging is particularly awful.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro, home of the 2016 Olympic Summer Games!!! (a clogged toilet at the international airport upon arrival...not a promising start)

And now, here it is, for your pleasure or your lament, the non-stop chitter chattering of Adrienne (or "Adrienne-y", my Portuguese name which I'm not particularly fond of) about her anxiety-ridden, solo Brazilian adventures.... 

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.”--LM MOntgomery, Anne of Green Gables

This Anne-girl quote from my childhood heroine has a couple dimensions to it that reflect how I have felt about this trip and, so far, what I have experienced...much to my great surprise. I had been eagerly anticipating this solo adventure for quite some time thinking about how "splendid" and "interesting" the world is and that I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to continue to learn more about places that, to be fair, I wouldn't usually take too much time to intentionally learn about for no good reason. Especially not with all the "splendid" and "interesting" netflix shows I have yet to find out about!

However, my excitement turned to horror last week as, prior to my departure, I accidentally stumbled upon  the Government of Canada's security advisory on the foreign affairs website. Some not very reassuring gems from the site included:

"Crime is a serious problem throughout Brazil. Rates of both petty crime and violent crime, including homicide, are highest in urban centres, including Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Recife, and Salvador". [pretty much every city I'm going to]

"Foreign tourists are most commonly affected by theft but incidents of violent crime against tourists have occurred, due to the high  prevalence of guns..."

"Unaccompanied female travellers should exercise caution...avoid travelling alone at night and avoid carrying a purse..."

"Robberies occur regularly, even during the day, and are sometimes violent and at gun- or  knifepoint."

"Armed robberies at restaurants are a growing concern."

And my personal favourite because it is just about the only thing I can do to take some control back from all the gun-toting drug lords, thieves, pimps, and murderous scalliwag Cariocas :

"Tourists are more vulnerable to crime when they look and act like tourists, so try to blend in."

After reading this website, my first thought was: "what the hell am I getting myself into travelling around this nation of treacherousness and evil POOR and DESPERATE South Americans??"

Then I proceeded to think about the clothing I was bringing with me and promptly googled: "Do Brazilian women wear birkenstocks?". To which the interweb's response was a unanimous, "NO WAY! NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD A BRAZILIAN BE CAUGHT DEAD IN BIRKENSTOCKS!!!". This created even more anxiety for me as the only footwear alternative I own that can support my "strong" arches for long periods of travel pedestrian-ism are icky Asics runners which are not very stylish...and in Brazil, style is pretty important. 

I arrived in Rio and immediately purchased what are known as the ubiquitous "democratic" shoe that I hope will contribute to me "blending": Havainas!

"It is ever so much easier to be good when your clothes are fashionable." -LM Montgomery , Anne of Green Gables

Oh they're not much to look at but they are like walking on fluffy, soft rubbery/plastic clouds.

And I also was fretting about my purse being too purse-like so I purchased this nylon beauty from the ariport...

In my opinion, this colourful, formless 14.99$ sack, coupled with my new Havainas, have made me into a chameleon. I AM CARIOCA!  Nothing to see here, you Brazilian perpetrators of EVIL WHO ALL WANT TO STEAL ALL MY THINGS, EVEN MY 3.5 YEAR OLD SAMSUNG GALAXY FABLET!!!  

After all this fuss and muss about "blending", I actually felt immediately comfortable as soon as I arrived at my airbnb in the neighbourhood of Ipanema, where my airbnb host greeted me and got me settled into my tiny little apartment:

My airbnb on Rua Visconde de Piraja, Ipanema

Rua Redentor, Ipanema

Day 1 of successful AND highly PLEASANT-not-scary-at-all touristing included walking in the rain along Copacabana beach (I feel like I have regressed back to the Vancouver winter I just emerged from :-( ) and accidentally thanking everyone by saying "gracias":

Copacabana, the hottest beach south of Havana

Stopping in for steak snack at a churrasqueria:

Followed by a cooking class where we learned to make some, allegedly, traditional Brazilian food:

Cook In Rio-- group cooking classes with Simone

Enjoying some sneaky, easy drinking juice-like caipirinhas and flambe-ing

And I did this all without a map or a taxi! Public transit warriors 4-Eva! (I also can barely pronounce the names of the street I  am staying on and those around me so trying to give my destination to a taxi driver seems more frightening than accidentally getting a wee bit lost on the public bus in a city of 7 million people, weirdly).

And as for the other dimension of my AoGGs quote that I started this whole post off with... that I will leave for an outro dia when I feel like spending  a rainy Rio evening reflecting on normative gender ideals and travelling and daily life, etc.... (BOOORRRING!)...am I talking too much? If so, I can stop!